January 28, 2022: -Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the company won’t release Cybertruck or any latest models this year and isn’t currently developing a $25,000 car.

He added that the continuing chip shortage would make it impossible to release new model vehicles without delivering fewer total vehicles in his opening remarks.

“If we had introduced say a new car in the previous year, we would total vehicle output would have been the same due to the constraints the chips’ constraints particularly.” He continued, “So, we will not be introducing recent vehicle levels this year. It would not make any sense.”

Without a Cybertruck electric pickup truck to sell, Tesla risks ceding ground to Ford, poisoning for deliveries of the fully electric F-150 Lighting pickup in the first half of this year. Ford recently said it is planning to triple its Mustang Mach-E, a would-be Tesla Model 3 and Y competitor, which expects the Mach-E to surpass 200,000 units per year by 2023.

One more likely competitor, the GMC Hummer EV, first rolled out to customers In December 2021. General Motors’ completely electric take on the truck is the first to incorporate the company’s Ultium platform, motors, and batteries, which GM developed in-house and planned to use as the foundation for its new electric vehicles to come.

Later, in response to a lower-priced Tesla for mainstream consumers, Musk said that the project is not currently underway.

“We’re not working on the $25,000 car as of now,” Musk said. ” At some point, we will. We have enough on our plate. Too much on our plate, frankly.”

Musk has suggested a $25,000 Tesla is possible. He said in 2018, it would take Tesla nearly three years to develop, though he didn’t provide a timeline for when it might happen. And, in 2020, Musk suggested at the company’s shareholder’s meeting that Tesla will launch a like car within the next three years.

“About three years from now, we’re confident we can make a very compelling $25,000 electric vehicle that’s also fully autonomous,” he claimed in 2020. Musk is notorious for being overly optimistic with his predictions.

Bernstein Senior Analyst Toni M. Sacconaghi Jr. followed up, asking, “If there is no $25,000 vehicle being worked on, is it realistic to think that you can sell more than 3 million vehicles with two very high volume cars and Cybertruck in 2024?”

Musk replied, “I mean, it is apparent from the questions that the gravity of Full Self Driving is not fully appreciated.”